Boss's Woman - Regretful Hero

Chapter 10

I was looking at Dimitri with surprise and shock. I didn't imagine he would propose something so intimate and so... I don't know.... thoughtful?

In fact, I didn't know what to expect from someone like him, but certainly not a proposal for us to have something more serious and spoken between us. It wasn't like I could just say what I wanted and expect him to do it. We were not a couple or anything at all!

His hands continued to hold me caged, as they were placed on either side of me, holding the counter I was leaning on. It was as if he wanted to make it clear that his intentions were like that gesture. He wanted to involve me in a way that I wouldn't want to escape. But the fact was that I didn't really know what to ask or what to say. I wouldn't dare ask him things like he suggested because we didn't really have any kind of relationship to begin with.

What was he thinking? I was just the trainee he started helping one day at his gym. There was no word of affection or commitment spoken between us. It wasn't like we were dating. I didn't even understand why he came over to my parents' house acting like I was his property. Why was he acting so intense if he had been so quick to dump me in front of a girl who was prettier and more interesting than me when he had the chance?

"I don't know what you expect me to say," I replied, turning my face away, trying to avoid his gaze. "It's not like I have any say over you or your actions. It's not like there is something between us. We don't have that kind of relationship. I... I have nothing to say."

"Say that looking at me if you're so sure," he replied without preamble. "If you're so sure of what you're saying, you won't have any problem looking at me and saying it again, will you? So I suppose that you don't feel anything for me? That this feeling that I've been trying to understand, that makes me hate every word I allowed that woman to say about you, doesn't mean anything either? Don't you feel like a chain is around your neck, stopping you from going very far? Well, you know what? That's how I feel. I feel like you've put a chain on me and I have not the need or the urge to take it out, sweetheart. What should I name this feeling, care to help?"

I turned to look into his eyes when he first said the word chain because I was certain he didn't mean it that way. He couldn't possibly mean that... he felt that way... Did he feel tied to... me? "But I didn't do anything..." I replied weakly. I really hadn't done anything. Other than working out, showing up at the gym, and smiling and greeting people I knew, I had done absolutely nothing that could make a man like Dimitri act in such an absurd manner.

"You smiled at me. You showed me your sweetest side. You made me want to wake up every morning for another delicious day at work. You let me cook for you and I had the pleasure of taking you out to dinner once. That was enough. You should take responsibility for the smiles you give."

He didn't say it in a joking or laughing way. But in a way that made it seem like we were talking about wars or very serious situations. He seemed focused and formal and his eyes didn't leave mine for a moment while he spoke, only to glance at my lips every now and then. I couldn't say what had changed in Dimitri but something very important seemed to be happening inside him. He had never seemed so serious as he did at that moment.

"As I said before... I didn't get where I am by doing stupid things, acting recklessly or allowing a woman to distract me from my own business. I'm not usually so careless. But yesterday I had the unpleasant surprise of realizing that I was doing something wrong in my reports because I couldn't get it out of my head that another man was taking a place that should have been mine." He was.... he was so infuriating! Like I would have asked him to come!

"I wouldn't have asked you," I muttered, almost to myself. He looked almost arrogant, with his head bent down to me, smiling with the knowledge... as if it was a given that I would have asked him to be my date, without a doubt. He didn't need to know that was exactly what I would have done.